plastic genius of the race, that passion to embody ideas in form, which
was at the root, as we saw, of their whole religious outlook, drove them
to enact for their own delight, in the most beautiful and telling forms,
the whole conception they had framed of the world and of themselves. The
changes of the seasons, with the toil they exact and the gifts they
bring, the powers of generation and destruction, the bounty or the
rigours of the earth; and on the other hand, the order and operations of
social phenomena, the divisions of age and sex, of function and of rank
in the state--all these took shape and came, as it were, to self-
consciousness in a magnificent series of publicly ordered _fetes_.
So numerous were these and so diverse in their character that it would
be impossible, even if it were desirable in this place, to give any
general account of them. Our purpose will be better served by a
description of two, selected from the calendar of Athens, and typical,
the one of the relations of man to nature, the other of his relation to
the state. The festivals we have chosen are those known as the
"Anthesteria" [Footnote: This interpretation of the meaning of the
"Anthesteria" is not accepted by modern scholars. It is not, however,
for typographical reasons, convenient to remove it from the text, and
the error is of no importance for the purpose of this book.] and the
"Panathenaea."

The Anthesteria was held at that season of the year when, as Pindar
sings in an ode composed to be sung upon the occasion, "the chamber of
the Hours is opened and the blossoms hear the voice of the fragrant
spring; when violet clusters are flung on the lap of earth, and chaplets
of roses braided in the hair; when the sound of the flute is heard and
choirs chanting hymns to Semele." On the natural side the festival
records the coming of spring and the fermenting of last year's wine; on
the spiritual, its centre is Dionysus, who not only was the god of wine,